The structural health monitoring field often aims at carrying out the diagnostics and monitoring of structures using sensor arrays connected to associated hardware, such as dedicated analyzers. When connected to a computer, this hardware can allow users to determine the integrity of structures, often in, or close to, real time. In this manner, structural health monitoring systems and techniques can go beyond simple detection of structural failure, to providing additional useful information such as early indications of damage.
However, structural health monitoring systems still suffer from drawbacks. For example, the analyzers and other computational devices employed commonly require electrical power provided by an external electrical power source. For some applications requiring placement of hardware remote from typical power sources, such as aviation and combat vehicles, this may present a severe impediment to use of such hardware.